About that last one

I did that last post because I had a bunch of unique pictures and no one was seeing them. I know, some of them are pushing the 'too weird' photo rule (that doesn't exist ;) ), but I hope that you liked them anyway!

Potpourri

Guarding my heart

Whenever I am told to "guard my heart", I instantly imagine my heart being a fair innocent princess in a tower, with myself needing to be a valiant knight to keep all of the evil things in this world away from her. But as I have been reading some different books on Christian living lately, that pleasant mental picture has been, uh, distorted. In the Bible, it says to "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." -Proverbs 4:23

God laments through a prophet that "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?" -Jeremiah 17:9

And in Genesis, it says that, "...the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth..." -8:21

Okay. So now instead of a beautiful maiden representing my heart, I have a vile, evil, trouble-causing criminal. It looks like I need to be more of a jailer that will keep all of the wickedness in that criminal from entering the world! And here is a sad fact: have you ever noticed that the phrase "follow your heart" is everywhere? We are being told to allow that foul vessel to determine our lives and actions. Another translation of Proverbs 4:23 states that the "springs of life" flow from the heart. I like to experience clean water better than dirty water. So I still need to guard what goes into my heart, but I also will guard what comes out of it, too. I am just so glad that God is on my side!

April showers

The rain that has almost continuously been falling over the last few days has brought life to my backyard. I took these photos last night.



Doesn't the one above look like skull?



These are soon-to-be blossoms on our chokecherry tree.

Testing, testing, 1 2 3...

These last few days I have been taking the tests that I do at the end of each school year (although I am not quite finished with the school year yet). I don't exactly mind taking the tests, i.e. I don't get nervous or study like nuts before the clock starts ticking. But sometimes I do need to take school more seriously! For example, could someone remind me what a simple subject of a sentence would be? I seem to have forgotten...or maybe I never committed it to my mind in the first place. I had to make my best guess when those questions were thrown at me!

Another worry: I was doing the math computation test, which is something I like far more than the concepts and applications. Whenever I came to problem that would take some time, I skipped it and came back to it when I had all the "easy" problems finished. Well, I had gone over all the problems, and still had time left on the clock, so I re-did one that hadn't given me any trouble. And I got a different answer. Oh snap. Now I was very insecure about the answers I had given to the other ones I had thought to be no trouble. But I checked the other answers until the time ran out, and almost all were consistent. [Insert crossed fingers here]

And in the science test, there were questions about concepts I had read about in physics last year, as well as biology ones, which I did this year. The physics questions kinda shook me up, but I finished all the tests and now am anxiously awaiting the results. The test has always been something I knew I needed try my hardest on, but now that I am high school, the scores seem to be ever so much important.

Tuesday Night Magic

I have played the violin for about 7 years now. I used to hate it with a passion, thinking it was boring and useless and extremely hard. But I am over that now, thankfully. Two years ago I started private lessons with a new teacher, which completely changed my view on this wonderful instrument. She is a professional cellist, but she is also good playing the piano and the violin. My brother, also a cellist, had been taking lessons from her for about two years when I started with her. I was apprehensive at first, for this was the first new teacher I had in five years! My old teacher had been the easy-going director of the small beginner orchestra I had started out in. She was a good teacher, but with as many children as she had to teach, I got little attention and my playing did not improve much in five years. But I was still sad when she announced that she was retiring. Anyway. Back to the near past. After one year with my new teacher, I had made leaps and bounds with my playing and was having a great time, too. Yes, I was having fun! I look forward to Tuesday night lessons and try to live up to my teacher's hopes for me. She likes it I move with the music, which I am still shy about, and is all about resonance and good tone.
I still get discouraged sometimes when I practice at home. When I play my exercises for my wonderful teacher, and especially when she plays them with me, I get volume and splendid sound that I used to only dream of. It's like magic, what she does. I still have much to learn and far to go, but the dislike and anger I used to feel when I played the violin has been replaced with happiness and satisfaction with the music I make.

Hi, I am new here.

Hi everyone, I call myself Margaret Rowena and this is my blog. The reason why I got this blog is simple: It looks like fun. I will post things about, as my title suggests, the world, its people, and the life in it. I am a follower of Jesus Christ and love Him so much. My posts may be few and far between, but I will write here!